A major potential benefit of digital video recording (DVR) is that it can free viewers from being tied to their TVs at particular times in order to watch particular programs on broadcast television. To actually deliver this benefit, however, viewers have to trust that the shows they want to watch will be recorded practically invariably. Unfortunately, DVR schemes have historically tended to encounter significant problems accurately recording shows. Shows that are particularly difficult to accurately record include live shows, such as sporting events or award shows. These shows often extend beyond their scheduled time, which results in their endings being unrecorded. This incorrect and incomplete recording is extremely frustrating to viewers.
Two attempted solutions have been tried in the past, but both have provided unsatisfactory results. A first attempted solution has been to disseminate live schedule updates to indicate that the end time of a given show has changed. However, this is a labor-intensive process, which involves a human watching the show in order to send the updates. A second attempted solution has been to over-compensate by extending the recording time of all live events. This often works, but it wastes significant storage resources. This second attempted solution also fails to accurately record shows in the worst cases, such as when an award show or a baseball game runs two hours over its scheduled time period. Moreover, neither solution facilitates playback of the recorded show.
Accordingly, there is a need for schemes and/or techniques that can accurately record shows and/or facilitate playback of recorded shows.